The Plank

Barack Obama was lucky he lost Indiana last week, since that would have forced Hillary Clinton from the race and set him up for an embarrassing loss in West Virginia, according to Josh Patashnik. In much better news for Democrats, Travis Childers won a Mississippi House seat that President Bush had carried in 2004 by 25 percent and that no center-left party has any business winning, Patashnik adds. At least one Democratic leader in Congress is getting great press; in the wake of two newspaper profiles lauding Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-Mass.) willingness to reach across the aisle, Eve Fairbanks writes of an exchange she had with a Republican flak who said Frank is “single-handedly raising the level of political discourse.”